Books

The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age

Over the past two decades, the way we learn has changed dramatically. We have new sources of information and new ways to exchange and to interact with information. But our schools and the way we teach have remained largely the same for years, even centuries. What happens to traditional educational institutions when learning also takes place on a vast range of Internet sites, from Pokemon Web pages to Wikipedia? This report investigates how traditional learning institutions can become as innovative, flexible, robust, and collaborative as the best social networking sites. The authors propose an alternative definition of “institution” as a “mobilizing network”—emphasizing its flexibility, the permeability of its boundaries, its interactive productivity, and its potential as a catalyst for change—and explore the implications for higher education.

The Future of Thinking reports on innovative, virtual institutions. It also uses the idea of a virtual institution both as part of its subject matter and as part of its process: the first draft was hosted on a Web site for collaborative feedback and writing. The authors use this experiment in participatory writing as a test case for virtual institutions, learning institutions, and a new form of collaborative authorship.

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In The New Education, Cathy N. Davidson reveals that we desperately need a revolution in higher learning if we want our students to succeed in our age of precarious work and technological disruption…. Read more »

When Cathy Davidson and Duke University advocated giving free iPods to the freshman class in 2003, critics said the university was wasting their money. Yet when students in practically every discipline invented academic… Read more »

The story of the White Furniture Company–a century-old, family-owned business that was bought out by a huge corporate conglomerate and later closed–puts a human face on the economic realities of the 1990s. Bill… Read more »

A professor at Duke who has lived in Japan on four occasions, Davidson writes perceptively, frankly, and personally about her struggles to understand Japanese ways. She also attempts to reconcile those ways with her… Read more »

An engaging combination of information and analysis, Davidson’s book on the production and readers of the early novel will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of the novel, of… Read more »

The essays in this collection were written collaboratively, with feedback, insights, discussion, and inspiration from the dozen students in “American Literature, American Learning,” a graduate class taught by Cathy N. Davidson. Thanks to… Read more »